


Brittle

by blue_duchess



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Tom's still a nutter though, except not really, how cute, it's a wee bit violent, they're married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 23:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8509090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_duchess/pseuds/blue_duchess
Summary: The Riddles have many secrets, none so as dangerous as the ones they keep from each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> *shuffles tentatively onto the scene* Hello. This is my first ever fic. Second, if you count the half-finished atrocity from when I was twelve, but I don't. So. Here ya go. xxx

Tom’s hand on her lower back is an iron bar, and Hermione wonders, not for the first time, which side the danger is on. There is a voice like maple syrup describing love on the bandstand as Tom’s eyes meticulously catalogue her features. The sharpness of her cheekbones, the plumpness of her lips, and the deep brown darkness of her skin. His gaze does not dip below her jaw and Hermione considers how proper the scene is, how _appropriate_. Hermione lets Tom weave her through the other couples with twists and twirls, and she performs her own analysis. The way his eyes flicker, but only when he spins her, as though she won’t notice, as though she doesn’t want to. She quirks a brow at how they never stray too far from the left side of the dance floor. A subtle tightening of his grip is paired with someone else’s movement and Hermione realises that it’s going to happen again. As the song ends Hermione excuses herself and Tom’s lips twitch with amusement. She smiles innocently at him and lets him leave. She swipes a glass of champagne from a nearby waiter and watches his elegant stride track a small cluster of men exiting the room. There is a metallic gleam between Tom’s fingers.  
How lazy of him.

*

“Mr Riddle your rise to success has been incredibly inspirational, you must be very proud of him, Mrs Riddle?” Hermione considers the question that isn’t a question and smiles politely at the woman. Marietta, or something. She isn’t subtle, gossiping and cackling with the other attendees who believe an invitation to a charity ball is synonymous with one to the upper class. And yet that energy, the way it twisted and flexed with hope and delusion- was familiar. She met the girl’s tumbling tempest scream for attention, and saw the man beside her engulfed within it. Saw the similarity between barbed-wire volume and Tom’s resolute ferocity that impacted like titanium, but looked a lot more like marble, and felt a lot more like gold.  
“I am immensely proud, yes. He is the most driven and hardworking person I know, and I love and admire him for it.” Hermione winks at Tom and nudges him good naturedly, and his eyes warm under the playful praise. “Well I’d be nothing without her.” Tom responds charmingly and the women surrounding them swoon.  
Hermione conceals her smirk in the rosy-beige bubbles of her champagne and privately compares public declarations to participation ribbons. Tom’s hand is resting gently on her waist, and Hermione peers down at it as she lowers her glass. She notes a fleck of rusty red underneath his fingernails.  
Hermione almost rolls her eyes at that.

*

Among those with an understanding of the human anatomy, it is not uncommon knowledge that a person can live for days after a stab wound to the intestines.  
Hermione is relying on this.  
Tom stands before her in the bedroom doorway; his sucker punch presence readjusting the atmosphere like a clap in the abyss. Their already large apartment feels stretched somehow, taut with suspense.  
There is a sharp intake of breath as Hermione realises how big she has let this become. She has supported her own demons and dressed them in satin. But none of that matters now; not when the satin is his tongue and the demons are his exhale.  
Hermione strikes with skills he _gave_ her, and when she sees the mix of pride and shock in his eyes she ignores the former, but relishes in the latter.  
His features narrow. “Well, my darling,” he spits mockingly. “So much for _love._ ”  
He lunges for Hermione and she stutters backwards, blade clattering to the ground. She runs from their room and down the hallway, ignoring his chuckles because _of course_ he would notice where she punctured; of course he would delight in how amateur she is at this. Of course he would assume how this ends. Hermione pauses when she reaches the lounge. She hears Tom walk easily after her. He isn’t anxious, believes he’s safe at least for now and the fear he should be feeling is transferred to Hermione.  
“Did you plan this sweetheart?” He speaks indulgently, as though to a child who is confidently and naively insisting her independence. Hermione doesn’t answer. He snickers.  
“Am I at least allowed to know why you’ve decided you can, what- _do better?_  
She has to bite back a scream then; he’s not even going to pretend to believe she has any control in this.  
“Have I disappointed you Tom? Did you expect better from me?”  
“Not in the least my darling, although I am impressed you managed to get this far at all. I imagine it has been a struggle for you.”  
Hermione slams her fist into the wall behind her and stalks back around the corner, fuelled with enough aggression to face him. Large blood-stained hands meet her determination in a snatch of her throat, and Hermione feels a glass frame splinter behind her as Tom crushes her head against it.  
Hermione’s eyelids flutter as a wave of extreme dizziness encases her. She laughs derisively at the irony of Tom’s violent grip being the only thing keeping her standing. Determinedly, she peels her eyes open and balances his physical viciousness with her own savage gaze, and their eyes lock.  
And then time slows, and the air thickens, and husband and wife inhale in the face of each other’s deception. Tom breaths in shakily and his eyes map a course down Hermione’s face they’ve travelled before, and his jaw clenches. A softening occurs, and Hermione registers an inexplicable, devastating _hurt._ The world has never been so quiet.  
Then, just as suddenly, a more efficient shift.  
“Is choking your usual method Tom? Or is repeatedly hitting their head enough? Should I brace myself for another blow?”  
For a moment, Tom looks winded. He blinks at her and starts to speak, but all Hermione registers is that the hand around her neck has gone slightly slack. She kicks at him hard, and as he doubles over- actually winded this time- Hermione bolts. Her head still pounding, she runs across to the other side of the apartment, Tom’s fury flung at her in cutting words and crashing movements. Hermione races through the lounge, bumps unsteadily against a glass cabinet as she passes the kitchen, and hears its contents shatter against the ground. Finally, Hermione reaches the bottom of the staircase. She slows with the effort to climb, and feels fear clawing icily at her heart. It didn’t work, she failed, and now Tom- large and athletic and strong is _right behind her._ She can no longer hear him, but he must be, he has to be. She can almost feel is hand, grasping out to pull at her collar. Or to clutch a handful of her short, curly hair and sharply wrench her down. Head crushing against wood, skull cracking on impact, his hand back on her throat. The stairs begin to blur and swing dangerously and Hermione feels as though she is hiking through cement.  
There is an abrupt, loud thud from behind her. Hermione halts, her brain sluggishly processing confusion, then shock, then _relief._ Weakly, she turns, braces herself against the banister, and looks down.  
Tom has collapsed at the foot of the stairs, heavy breaths dragging themselves from his lungs. He must have pursued her at walking pace, Hermione realises, and as her gaze drifts past him she sees a trail of the same deep red she saw beneath his fingernails. She almost cries with happiness.  
Hermione walks down the stairs far more confidently than she did up them, and comes to a halt two steps above where Tom now lies.  
“I don’t- I don’t understand.” Tom splutters, eyes glassy with distress. “The intestines- you got me in the _intestines_ Hermione this shouldn’t- this shouldn’t be… not for a while at least… long enough to call…”  
Hermione waits patiently for him to collect himself.  
Tom crawls forward and clutches at the banister to his left, the one Hermione is leaning against. He looks desperately up at her. “I don’t… this isn’t… _explain Hermione._ Why is this ha… happening?”  
Hermione smirks and coos at him with mock sweetness.  
“Because, Tommy dear, I didn’t stab you in the intestines.”  
Tom goes rigid, then starts to tremble, and then shake. A string of shaky muffled words and phrases stutter out like Morse code. Among them are the words ‘abdominal’ and ‘aorta’.  
“Yes it’s quite a bit behind the intestines. But I’m pleased with your assumption and self-assured safety. I admit I was relying on it.” Hermione sneers.  
Tom’s face contorts into utter loathing and he hoists himself up onto the banister. He slowly drags himself upwards, his features morphing into pain and determination and back again. Hermione remains resolute in position, refusing to allow his final image of her to be anything other than dominant. In a concluding surge of adrenaline, Tom finally reaches her step and sharply grips Hermione’s waist. She feels her front get tacky from him. They stand there, a bloody and grotesque facsimile of the nights earlier events, except Hermione no longer senses danger. Tom summons the dregs of his beautiful and foreboding presence and glares down at her.  
“You are an utter wretch my darling, it has been a trauma loving you.”  
Hermione envisages the many who have glowered at Tom the same way he does at her now. A violent cacophony of pressed tailored suits stained rosy brown, smashed champagne flutes protruding from limbs and utterly petrified shrieks immortalised in dreams and tears and recall.  
Hermione takes her conscience, mutilated by memory, and anchors it in Tom’s skin that is titanium that is marble that is gold-  
And watches him fall.


End file.
